Cuba has changed

Published March 16. 2013 12:01AM

The following editorial appeared recently in the Los Angeles Times.

Washington has for three decades kept Cuba on a list of countries that sponsor terrorism, even though it has long since changed the behavior that earned it that distinction. By all accounts, Cuba remains on the list - alongside Iran, Sudan and Syria - because it disagrees with the United States' approach to fighting international terrorism, not because it supports terrorism. That's hardly a sensible standard.

The State Department says it has no plans to remove Cuba from the list. But Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., who recently led a bipartisan congressional delegation to Havana, is urging President Obama to consider a range of policy changes toward Cuba, including delisting it. Designation as a state sponsor of terrorism carries heavy sanctions, including financial restrictions and a ban on defense exports and sales.

None of the reasons that landed Cuba on the list in 1982 still exist. A 2012 report by the State Department found that Havana no longer provides weapons or paramilitary training to Marxist rebels in Latin America or Africa. Cuba is currently hosting peace talks between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and President Juan Manuel Santos' government. And Cuban officials condemned the 9/11 attacks.

Moreover, keeping Cuba on the list undermines Washington's credibility in Latin America. During last year's Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, presidents from the hemisphere expressed frustration that the U.S. remains frozen in its relations with Cuba, enforcing an embargo that dates to President Kennedy.

Cuba is not a model state. The government often fails to observe human rights. Its imprisonment of Alan Gross, a subcontractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development who was sentenced to a 15-year jail term in 2009 after bringing communications equipment into the country, has prompted repeated visits to the island by U.S. officials seeking his release.

The list, however, is reserved not for human rights violators but for countries that export or support terrorism. Clinging to that designation when the evidence for it has passed fails to recognize Cuba's progress and reinforces doubts about America's willingness to play fair in the region.